Portrait Drawing Week 6: Putting it all Together and Hair

This week we’ll put it all together with an accent on hair. Just as vegetation clothes the underlying topology of the landscape, hair clothes the head, so it’s important not to lose track of the underlying structures of the head. In the portrait above the hair was depicted largely as masses of tone with linear marks showing the direction in which individual hairs lay. I drew several studies of Lucy and photographed her before painting the final portrait in watercolour.

Except for Lucy, above, and the drawing of the young redhead further on in this post, all of these portraits were drawn directly from life.

For a moustache to look convincing make sure the underlying shape of the upper jaw is drawn correctly.

Similarly with a beard, draft in the jaw line and position the ears correctly, before overlaying the beard. With a particularly dense beard you may just have to draw the beard in relation to the mouth and ears. Getting the tones of the main masses of hair in will help to make it look convincing.

This young woman was drawn rapidly on the Jubilee Line on my way to North Greenwich. Here the head shape was drawn before adding the hair and headset.

This young girl has featured in a previous blog. I decided to just suggest her plaits rather than draw them in great detail. Again it was important to establish the overall head shape and position the ears before adding the hair. The hair was worked tonally before adding a suggestion of individual hairs in a fairly loose manner.

Note how in this portrait the facial features are framed by the hair, earrings and blouse collar. Also I have been fairly adventurous with colour, accentuating the blueness of the shadow areas. Have fun with your portraits this week! Use whatever medium you like and concentrate on hair, or a head with a covering hat, cap, headset or other!

Your drawings:

Everyone was allowed to spend up to 15 minutes on each of the sketches on the sheets below;

Very well done as there were some challenging angles and head gear!